


Not A Heart, Beating

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-21
Updated: 2003-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:36:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When there is disunity within the self, what comfort is there to be had?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not A Heart, Beating

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mary

 

 

Not A Heart, Beating.   
 

* * *

  


"Master Dick?" and it's Alfred's voice and I'm awake, I'm awake. Someone really ought to explain to me how I figured I'd work sleep into this insane schedule I'm keeping. 

"M'yeah, I'm here," and I wonder where the hell my pants are, because I'm still in my shirt and shoes and there's drool on the couch. "What's up?" 

"I was wondering if you'd seen the news coverage in the last hour?" I scramble for the remote, flipping to one of the dozen or so news channels that fill up the airwaves and _fuck_ it's not good, it's not good. "Should I prepare your room?" 

"Yeah. Yeah. I'll be there ... soon. Soon." And I will be. Because Two-Face is out, and he's got hostages.   
 

* * *

  


The thing that has always scared me the most about Two-Face is that he's still, somewhere deep down, Harvey Dent. That's a liability for the Batman, because Bruce loved Harvey. Loves Harvey. And this is starting to sound like a convention for people with multiple personalities. 

Which is part of the problem. 

Sometimes it scares the hell out of me how completely the Batman can divorce himself from Bruce Wayne. Sometimes it makes me wonder just how far apart Bruce and Harvey are. Who's crazier. Because the Batman might be fighting on the side of the good guys, but he's as ruthless as Two-Face in his own way. And when he's dealing with Two-Face, he's even more unreachable than usual because he's got to cut off every bit of Bruce, every part of him that looks at Two-Face and sees Harvey Dent. 

Sometimes I'm afraid he'll go so far away we'll never get Bruce back. 

I'll never get Bruce back. 

So I'm breaking pretty much every land speed record there is, because ... because I've got some half-assed notion I can do something about any of this. Which I can't, not really. 

But maybe I can be the Batman's back-up one more time, and maybe I can dig around to pull Bruce out of the dark corners afterwards. Maybe. 

I call in about a mile outside of Gotham, and Alfred's waiting with the latest intel. The Batman's already inside the Casino Two-Face knocked over; it's full of the rich and famous and enough games of chance to make that sociopath's heart go pitter-pat. Robin's making all sorts of sound and fury outside, distracting the goons and gawkers. 

There's a reason Robin wears red. 

Me, I'm better in the shadows these days. So I follow the Batman in. 

He's silent and fast in the ductwork and I doubt anyone else could find him, but I know him. For a little while I _was_ him, as much as I ever could be. I can't tell if he's glad I'm there or if he's pissed. Probably neither. I'm just another factor he's got to work in, another piece he's got to move around to make everything work. 

The security suite is our first target, and it goes down quickly, if not easily. He uplinks the video feeds to Robin and by extension Alfred, who can then keep us updated on everyone's movements. 

"You take those three out, by the door," the Batman says, voice calculatingly precise as he indicates the doorway closest to where the hostages are clustered. "Then get everyone out. Robin will let you know what's going on ahead of you." 

"And you?" I ask, but I already know. My three leaves three more, and Two-Face. Batman's lips are a thin, forbidding line; there's no sign of Bruce anywhere here. It makes me cold inside. I want to trade places, I want him to get out, I want him to be safe but it doesn't work like that. It never has, it never will. 

So I take out my targets and shepherd the hostages to safety and I don't look back.   
 

* * *

  


Robin sounds the all clear and the police go in to clean up. They find Two-Face's goons unconscious, gassed. They find Two-Face zip-stripped and secured. There's a pressure dressing over a bone-splintering gunshot wound to his thigh. He's spitting mad when they haul him out, nothing but rage and rant and I wonder how Bruce can see anything left of Harvey in there. 

I find the Batman three blocks away and when I touch the shoulder of his suit there's blood on my gauntlet. He lets me get a pressure dressing on it, he lets me get him back to the Batcave. He doesn't say a single goddamn word.   
 

* * *

  


Alfred's waiting with the field kit, and he's cutting away the suit before Bruce can even try to get past him. There are two deep grazes, nasty enough to need sutures. Alfred puts the stitches in as neatly as a tailor and sticks a shot of antibiotic into Bruce for good measure. 

"Master Tim is already upstairs and in bed," he informs us. "And Master Dick's room is of course ready." He doesn't say anything, but he looks at me and I look at him and we're both as helpless here as we've ever been because the cowl's off but Bruce isn't back, not really. 

I strip down, find something to wear upstairs. Bruce doesn't; he sits down to review the video footage. So I settle in and watch him. 

"Do you think Alfred knows calling me Master Dick at my age makes me sound like a porn star?" I say at last. Bruce slides a cool look sideways, but that's all. "There isn't any point to this, you know. You can't fix this, except to maybe nail Arkham's doors shut. This --" I gesture to the slow, frame by frame progression of him descending, cape billowing, muzzle flashes and machine gun fire and the short, sharp struggle with Two-Face, " -- this'll just make you crazy as he is." 

Bruce goes utterly still and I think maybe he's going to turn to stone, or maybe turn around and cold-cock me and I think I like the second alternative better because it's something I can work with. Instead, he just slumps in his chair. He's pale under the bandages, like marble. I let my hand drop to his good shoulder and he's warm and real, not stone at all. "Harvey's gone, Bruce, or as good as," I say and he closes his eyes and he's never looked so broken, not even after Bane. 

Because Bruce loves Harvey. Not for the first time I wonder just how much, in just what way. 

"I could be like him," he says at last. "I could so easily be like him," he says and it's the truth and he doesn't even sound scared like any sane person would be, standing on the edge of bugfuck crazy. He just sounds ... tired. Resigned. 

"I'd kick your ass first," I say, "and that'd be after Alfred and right ahead of Tim. Then Barbara would run over you with her wheelchair a few times, just for good measure." 

He stands, and he turns, and his eyes are ... _fuck_. He touches the collar of my T-shirt, digs in and pulls the neck to the point of tearing so that the scar shows. We're his walking wounded, and if the Batman sees the battlefield ... well, Bruce sees the casualties. I hate that look on his face, but at least it's there, he's there, he's not remote and far away. I cover his hand with my own, let my fingers curl around his pulse and feel his heartbeat and ... 

... maybe we're all of us a little crazy sometimes. I grasp his arm, pull him off balance, pull him down. I twist and turn and he's on the floor, looking up at me. It takes just a minute to peel away his costume enough to touch him, to pin him down and touch his scars, the ones visible to the eye. "Every single one of us _chooses_ ," I tell him. "We chose to work with you, we chose to make a difference and you can just get the _fuck_ off that cross already, okay?" 

He flips me over easily, neatly, but I can twist and move in ways he can't, so I'm out of his grasp, over his shoulder and on his back, sitting down hard, pushing him to the ground again. "Okay?" I repeat but he's never been one to give in easily. I think Alfred's going to have a mess to clean up in the morning, if I don't beat him to it. 

It goes on for a little while and it's a damn good thing the place is soundproofed because we're making a hell of a racket. He's a better fighter than me, he has reach and mass and sheer goddamned cunning but being an acrobat keeps me in the game. Besides, I know enough of his moves to avoid the most obvious ones. 

It's the inobvious one that does me in, though. 

He kisses me. Hard, angry. I can taste blood, from his split lip or mine I can't tell. I bite his tongue and he digs his fingers into my arms, holds me tight. I grab back and I'm going to leave a few marks myself. Street clothes go one way, the tights go the other way and I was right, Alfred's going to have one _hell_ of a mess to clean up in the morning because I don't think I'm going to be in any shape to get to it before him. 

It's hard and fast and mostly silent, which is almost funny if I stop to think, because that's how we do almost everything. He lifts me into the wall, his hands digging into my ass and his body pressed against mine and there's sweat and friction and his teeth in my shoulder and maybe it's a weird variation on the whole Oedipal thing but really, Alfred was more the fatherly one. Bruce was always something else entirely. 

He loses it first, stuttering and shuddering but I'm not that far behind him. He's breathing hard and so am I and I'm still crammed up against the wall but it's all good. 

I think it's all good. 

He lets me loose after a minute or two and we're just standing there _looking_ at each other and you can see the shutters coming down so I open my mouth and say, "Uh. So do you think that'd fit what the department shrink considers catharsis?" 

Bruce doesn't laugh but the lines around his eyes show briefly, a micro-expression of humour. "Perhaps not exactly that, but near enough," he says at last, heading towards the showers. I follow him and we sluice off the worst of the mess. I round up what's left of my clothes and he finds a robe and we head upstairs, and we don't say anything more, because we just _don't_ talk, not usually. It's not like this could ever amount to anything, anyway. The Batman wouldn't let it. 

I admire the Batman, don't get me wrong, but sometimes he scares the fuck out of me. I love Bruce, and I know that being the Batman might well eventually destroy Bruce, that someday what Bruce said down in that cave might be true. 

But not today, and that's the best I can hope for. 

He pauses before turning down the hall that leads to his rooms, and he looks tired but he's almost smiling, if you know how to look for it. "Master _Dick_?" he says, drily, and maybe it's even better than I'd hoped. 

"So I've been told," and he snorts at that before disappearing into the darkness. I stand there a minute or two more, wondering if there's a hope in hell I can use a sick day tomorrow because I'm not sure I'm going to be able to walk or even sit down and I don't think they're going to believe I fell in the shower. 

I sure as hell know Alfred won't, but Bruce'll be the one getting the Alfred eyebrow at the fingerprints tomorrow when he changes the dressings, so I really don't care. I just stagger off to bed, and try to get to sleep before the endorphins wear off.   
 

* * *

  


End 

Notes: The title is from "Night Shift" by Sylvia Plath. Thanks to D. for the beta out of the blue. These characters belong to DC and Time Warner and a whole host of others that ain't me. This isn't for profit. 

 


End file.
